Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell once observed that some of his haters would go into amazing detail, in their poison pen letters, about an act that they supposedly found abhorrent.
I'm often reminded of that each time there's a new crime drama on TV.
You know the kind of thing. Broadchurch. Vera. Wire in The Blood.
There seems to be a simple formula. There's a murderer loose in coastal Nimbytown and he's killing women and children in the most horrific ways the script-writer can think up. In fact, there might even be two of these scriptical-killers at work, and they're both egging each other to imagine ever more ghastly acts of depravity.
Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Luvvy Liberal has just 49 minutes (or 45 if it's on ITV) to emote over the case and reflect on the evil of all men.
Aside from the heavy handed symbolism of all these ghastly shows, one thing really troubles me.
What sort of person thinks up ever more dreadful ways of killing women and children, just so they can do some moral posturing about how awful they think it is?
Am I being over sensitive here?
I hate these Murder-tainment shows.
True crime shows are just as bad.